The present invention relates to a bundle of tubes or rods in which the tubes or rods are held together in tight packaging form and are enclosed at least at their ends by a film such that the ends and thus, for example, the interior of the tubes, are safeguarded against contamination.
The transport of rod-shaped articles, particularly of tubes or rods of a brittle material such as glass or ceramics, poses a great problem due to the fragility of these articles. It was also not possible until now to transport glass tubes, for example, in the condition of original sterility in which they are produced during a tube stretching process.
The conventional methods for packaging glass tubes, for example, consist in that either a bundle of such tubes is wrapped into packing paper, tightened with string or taped, or that such tubes are laid in appropriate packing crates of heavy cardboard. It is also known to push hoods of stiff paper carton onto the ends of bundles of such tubes so that a tube package is formed.
All these types of packaging have serious disadvantages. The tubes abut one another relatively loosely in the bundles so that the mechanical strength of the total package is not very great. Shock and impact relatively easily break the tubes; fragments, particularly particles, penetrate the interior of the tube. The contamination of packaged tubes during the transport is generally very disadvantageous, because the tubes are often further processed into articles such as ampules for which the highest sterility requirements are made.